The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
N EWSLETTER Yale University
June 2009 Issue 28
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) A conference organised by the Paul Mellon Centre and the Royal Academy of Arts, 2 September 2009
John William Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs (detail), 1896, Manchester City Galleries
John William Waterhouse is amongst the most visible of artists in today’s popular culture. His painting, The Lady of Shalott, has consistently sold more postcards for Tate than any other work of art. Reproductions of his work on posters, prints, and greetings cards are invariably bestsellers, and there are dozens of websites that feature his art. Yet Waterhouse has been largely ignored in academic art history and museum practice. Although his paintings won medals at world’s fairs from the 1880s through to 1900, his role on the international art scene has been forgotten; scholars have yet to explore his complex engagement with ancient and modern literary traditions, or with the exciting new developments of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in archaeology, anthropology, comparative mythology, occultism and paganism. Only now is he receiving his first full-scale retrospective exhibition, at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands (14 December 2008–3 May 2009), the Royal Academy of Arts in London (27 June–13 September 2009), and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1 October 2009-7 February 2010).
This conference brings together five scholars from different disciplines and the four co-curators of the exhibition to consider new perspectives revealed by this first, comprehensive showing of Waterhouse’s work. The conference is organised by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in collaboration with the Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition at the University of Bristol, with a generous gift from the Vice Chancellor, Professor Eric Thomas, and Mrs Narell Thomas. It will conclude with an evening reception and private view of the exhibition at the Royal Academy. Full conference fee, including coffee, lunch, tea and reception at the Royal Academy of Arts: £40. Student and Senior Citizen concessions are available at a reduced rate of £20. To register for the conference please check availability with Ella Fleming at the Paul Mellon Centre: Email: events@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk; Tel: 202 7580 0311; Fax: 020 7636 6730 – then send a cheque made payable to the Paul Mellon Centre to: 16 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3JA, and include a stamped addressed envelope. Conference details overleaf.
The Paul Mellon Centre Staff Director of Studies: Brian Allen Assistant Director for Academic Activities: Martin Postle Assistant Director for Administration: Kasha Jenkinson Librarian: Emma Floyd Archivist: Emma Lauze IT/Website/Picture Research: Maisoon Rehani Administrative Assistant: Ella Fleming Yale-in-London Coordinator: Viv Redhead Grants Administrator: Mary Peskett Smith Editor Special Projects: Guilland Sutherland Special Projects: Hugh Belsey, Elizabeth Einberg, John Ingamells Advisory Council: Caroline Arscott, Paul Binski, Andrew Causey, Philippa Glanville, Mark Hallett, Alex Kidson, Sandy Nairne, Marcia Pointon, Elizabeth Prettejohn, Duncan Robinson, Michael Rosenthal, Gavin Stamp, Christine Stevenson Company Registered in England 983028 Registered Charity 313838 16 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA Tel: 020 7580 0311 Fax: 020 7366 6730 www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
CONFERENCE
John William Waterhouse (1849–1917) 2 September 2009 CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Ronald Hutton (History Dept., University of Bristol) Languages of Paganism in Victorian Britain Christina Bradstreet (Birkbeck College) Wicked with Roses: Waterhouse’s Soul of the Rose Simon Goldhill (Dept. of Greek, Kings College Cambridge) Sex in the afternoon: the ancient world and desire in Waterhouse Nancy Marshall (University of Wisconsin - Madison) Nymphs in the City: Waterhouse in the Context of Late Nineteenth-Century London
A roundtable discussion will be led by the co-curators of the exhibition: Elizabeth Prettejohn (Professor of History of Art, University of Bristol), Peter Trippi (independent art historian and Editor, Fine Art Connoisseur), Robert Upstone (Curator of Modern British Art, Tate), Patty Wageman (Deputy Director, Groninger Museum). Evening reception and private view of the exhibition at 7 p.m. in the Sackler Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts.
Stefano-Maria Evangelista (Trinity College Oxford) Ladies of Shalott: Waterhouse and Victorian Poetry
Trans-Atlantic Romanticism An International Conference 15–17 October 2009 Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts (Dr. Alison Bracker); the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (Dr. Martin Postle); and the Department of History of Art, University College London (Professor Andrew Hemingway). Sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art. The object of this conference is to rethink Romanticism in the American visual arts of the period c.1789–1848 within a trans-Atlantic framework. The twelve papers and keynote lecture will address the issues of Romanticism from a number of perspectives. The conference brings together scholars from both sides of the Atlantic working on cognate themes, and will provide the forum for extended discussions rather than simply presentations of research findings. The event will open with a keynote lecture by Professor Alan Wallach (College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA) at the Royal Academy on the evening of Thursday 15 October, which will lay out key themes to be taken up in the succeeding days. The conference venue will be the Paul Mellon Centre on Friday 16 October, and University College London (Cruciform Building) on Saturday 17 October. Other speakers include Dr Matthew Beaumont (University College London); Professor Emeritus David Bindman (University College London); Professor Leo Costello (Rice University, Houston); Professor Mark Ford (University College London); Professor Paul Giles (University of Oxford); Professor Andrew Hemingway (University College London); Dr Wendy Ikemoto (Courtauld Institute of Art); Dr Sarah Monks (University of York); Dr Kenneth Myers
Benjamin West, Death on a Pale Horse, 1783–1803, Royal Academy of Arts. London
(Curator of American Art, Detroit Institute of Arts); William Truettner (Senior Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum); Professor Dell Upton (University of California, Los Angeles); Professor Emeritus William Vaughan (Birkbeck College, University of London). Saturday’s event will conclude with a round-table discussion. A small exhibition of relevant works by American artists from the Academy’s collection will be shown concurrently in the Royal Academy Library Print Room. Conference fees are £50.00 and £25.00 to students and concessions. The fee covers a drinks reception at the Royal Academy and tea, coffee and a sandwich lunch on the Friday and Saturday. Inquiries and booking requests should be directed to the Conference Assistant, Dr. Philippa Kaina, at the Department of History of Art, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK; or by e-mail to: p.kaina@ucl.ac.uk
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE CONFERENCE AND PUBLICATION
Antiquity at Home
Related publication
Study Day at the Paul Mellon Centre, 28–29th January 2010
This conference will address the collecting of antiquities in Europe, primarily focussing on England and Italy, in the eighteenth century. The event will coincide with the forthcoming publication by Yale University Press of Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth Century Rome, a book begun by the noted Grand Tour scholar, the late Ilaria Bignamini, and completed by Clare Hornsby. This project explores the involvement of the British in Rome in the enormously active market in marbles and other antiquities in mid- to late-century. The conference has been jointly planned by the Paul Mellon Centre and the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum and opens with a keynote lecture in the BP Lecture Theatre at the British Museum at 6.30 pm on Thursday 28th January by Professor David Watkin, and continues on Friday 29th at the Paul Mellon Centre. Speakers, including Tim Knox, Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum and Ian Jenkins, Senior Curator, Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, at the British Museum, will look in detail at different aspects of Antiquity at Home, concentrating on objects and collections. There will be talks looking closely at specific marbles and house collections and broader examinations of the rôle of collectors such as Charles Townley, Richard Worsley and the Gaetani family in Naples. The Study Day will begin with a tribute to Ilaria Bignamini by Professor Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and formerly Director of the British School at Rome. Full conference fee, including admission to Professor Watkin’s lecture on 28 January, coffee, lunch, tea and a wine reception at the Paul Mellon Centre on 29 January, is £40 (Student and Senior Citizen concessions £20). To register for the conference please check availability with Ella Fleming at the Paul Mellon Centre. Tel: 202 7580 0311 Fax: 020 7636 6730 Email: events@paul-melloncentre.ac.uk then send a cheque made payable to the Paul Mellon Centre to 16 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3JA, including a stamped addressed envelope.
Digging and Dealing in Eighteenth-Century Rome by Ilaria Bignamini and Clare Hornsby This important and long-awaited book offers the first overview of all British-led excavation sites in and around Rome in the Golden Age of the Grand Tour. Based on work carried out by the late Ilaria Bignamini, the book traces sculptures and other works of art that are currently in public collections around the world from their original find-sites via the dealers and entrepreneurs to the private collectors in Britain. In the first of two volumes, approximately fifty sites, each located by maps, are analysed in historical and topographical detail, supported by fifty newly written and researched biographies of the major names in the Anglo-Italian world of dealing and collecting. Essays by Bignamini and Hornsby introduce the field of study and elucidate the complex bureaucracy of the relevant departments of the Papal courts. The second volume of the book is a collection of hundreds of letters from the dealers and excavators abroad to collectors in England, offering a rich source of information about all aspects of the art market at the time. Ilaria Bignamini was an historian of art and archaeology. Clare Hornsby is Research Fellow at the British School at Rome. January 270x217 mm. 200 b/w + 50 colour illus. Vol. 1: 288 pp. Vol. 2: 176 pp. Slipcased ISBN 978-0-300-16043-7 £45.00
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
PUBLICATIONS
The Arts of Industry in the Age of Enlightenment by Celina Fox
Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery by Marcia Pointon
This book is about the people who did the work. The arts of industry encompassed both liberal and mechanical realms – not simply the representation of work in the fine art of painting, but the mechanical arts or skills involved in the processes of industry itself. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, Celina Fox argues that mechanics and artisans used four principal means to describe and rationalise their work: drawing, modelmaking, societies and publications. These four channels, the central themes of this engrossing book, provided the basis for experimentation and invention, explanation and classification, validation and authorisation, promotion and celebration, bringing them into the public domain and achieving progress as a true part of the Enlightenment. The book also examines the status of the mechanical arts from the medieval period to the seventeenth century and explains how and why entrepreneurs, mechanics and artisans presented themselves to the world in portraits, and how industry was depicted in landscape and genre painting. The book concludes in the early nineteenth century when, despite the drive towards specialisation and exclusivity and the rise of the profession of engineer, the broad sweep of the mechanical arts retained a distinct identity for far longer than has generally been recognised. The debates their presence provoked are still with us today.
Diamonds are not for ever – nor necessarily are they a girl’s best friend. Ranging from precious stones as raw wealth to the symbolic properties of gems whether in Antiquity and the Bible or in Victorian art and literature, this book examines how small-scale and valuable artefacts have figured in systems of belief and in political and social practice in Europe since the Renaissance. Marcia Pointon offers an in-depth study that, drawing on unpublished evidence, reveals the importance of artefacts produced by jewellers and horologists, and their significance in shaping people’s understanding of the world they live in. Pointon explores the capacity of jewels not only to fascinate but also to create disorder and controversy throughout history: what is materially precious is invariably contentious, whether in religious or in secular society; when what is precious is not gold bars or bonds but finely crafted artefacts made from hard-won imported materials, the stakes are particularly high. The struggle for control of both material and meaning is paramount, whether in scientific discourse (as with John Ruskin’s crystallography) or in pictorial imagery, such as Poussin’s interpretation of the origin of coral.
Celina Fox is an independent scholar and museums advisor. She was the editor of London World City. October 352 pp. 280x200mm. 200 b/w + 60 colour illus. ISBN 978-0-300-16042-0 £40.00
Marcia Pointon is Professor Emerita in History of Art, Manchester University, and Honorary Research Fellow, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. September 368 pp. 290x245mm. 100 b/w + 150 colour illus. ISBN 978-0-300-14278-5 £45.00
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660–1851 by Ingrid Roscoe, Emma Hardy and M. G. Sullivan This remarkable dictionary provides information on the work of over 3,000 sculptors working in Britain between 1660 and 1851. It is a substantially expanded edition of Gunnis’s Dictionary of British Sculptors, the primary source for information on church monuments, portrait busts, carved fireplaces and other sculpture since its publication in 1951. The editorial team, and invited experts in the field, have drawn on a mass of archival and scholarly material, including Gunnis’s own extensive unpublished archive, to rewrite all the major lives of the sculptors, and to add over 1,000 new ones. Each entry provides a brief biography of the sculptor, where possible, followed by a list of his or her known works. Each work is identified by date and location, past or present. Provenance, materials, exhibitions, known preparatory sketches and models are also recorded. The book contains a full list of bibliographical references and an index of names and of locations. Ingrid Roscoe is an independent scholar, Emma Hardy is collections manager at the Geffrye Museum and M. G. Sullivan is curator of sculpture at the Ashmolean Museum. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and The Henry Moore Foundation September 1616 pp. 232x154mm. ISBN 978-0-300-14965-4 £80.00
PUBLICATIONS
Richard Norman Shaw (revised edition) by Andrew Saint Richard Norman Shaw (1831–1912) was the most fertile, representative and immediately influential domestic architect of the late Victorian period in England. His training and early career coincided with the heyday of the Gothic Revival, in which style he designed a handful of original churches. His most prolific period of practice saw the triumph of the ‘Old English’ and ‘Queen Anne’ domestic styles which are largely associated with his name. A series of powerful urban buildings designed towards the end of Shaw’s career reveals him as one of the foremost proponents of a revived classicism. In each of these styles the piquant originality of Shaw’s designs and the brilliance of his planning captivated his contemporaries in the architectural and social world alike. He became the undisputed leading architect of his day and the precursor of such different talents as Lutyens and Voysey. In the United States, Shaw’s distinctive contribution to English domestic architecture played a formative part in the evolution of the Shingle Style. This new edition of a major work offers a completely revised text and new introduction and is now illustrated generously in colour, with many specially commissioned photographs. Andrew Saint is the General Editor of The Survey of London and the author of The Image of the Architect, Towards A Social Architecture: The Role of School-Building in Post- War England and Architect and Engineer: A Study in Sibling Rivalry. October 488 pp. 280x220mm. 200 b/w + 60 colour illus. ISBN 978-0-300-15526-6 £40.00
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
WEBSITE
Paul Mellon Centre Website
LAUNCH OF THE NEW PAUL MELLON CENTRE WEBSITE In March we launched our new website, which has been designed to provide increased functionality and to make available archive materials relating to the Centre’s past activities. New photography has been undertaken to enhance the visual impact of the site and to communicate our purpose and range of resources. A full text search facility enables users to search the entire site by entering details such as artist, event, title, author or keyword. There is a new section highlighting recent Paul Mellon Centre/Yale University Press publications and educational events supported through the fellowships and grants programme. In addition, the backlist of publications has been organized alphabetically by author surname to ease navigation and users can now download past newsletters and event details from 2002 onwards. You can visit the site at: http://www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk and email feedback to: info@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
New Grant Award THE WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANT The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust was created by Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in her lifetime, and came into effect following her death in January 2004. The Trust has decided to instigate The Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Research Support Grant which will be awarded annually to a scholar or researcher in the field of 20th-century British painting. The grant is for ÂŁ2,000 to assist with travel, subsistence and other research costs and will be administered by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. Details of the award will be found on the Fellowships and Grants pages of our website at: www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk and the closing date for applications will be 15 September each year. For further information on the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust see www.barns-grahamtrust.org.uk
THE PAUL MELLON CENTRE
GRANT AWARDS
Grant Awards At the March 2009 meeting of the Centre’s Advisory Council, the following fellowships and grants were awarded:
Victorian Society grant towards a symposium, 14 November 2009: Ecclesiology and Empire: Victorian Church Design Outside the British Isles 1830-1910
SENIOR FELLOWSHIPS Tim Ayers to prepare his book The Medieval Stained Glass of Merton College, Oxford Anna Gruetzner Robins to prepare her book The Artists of the 1890s
RESEARCH SUPPORT GRANTS Jessica Berenbeim for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Art and History in the Sherborne Missal: Legal Consciousness and Monastic Culture in England, c.1400’ Stephen Bottomore for research in the United Kingdom on ‘The Art of Painting Films’ Renate Dohmen for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Painting with Colour and Light: The Art of the Amateur Artist in British India’ Jennifer Ferng for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Rococo interior designs of John Vardy and use of colour and applications of materials such as stone in the architecture of William Butterfield’ Michael Gaudio for research in the United Kingdom on “Prosper Thou Our Handyworks”: Prints and Protestant Devotion at Little Gidding, 1625-1642’ Catherine Jolivette for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Art and the Atom: British Art in the Nuclear Age’ Dipti Khera for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Urban Imaginings Between Empires: Picturing British India’s ‘Land of Princes’’ Jason LaFountain for research in the United Kingdom on ‘The Puritan Art World’ David Mackie for research in the United Kingdom on the ‘Complete Catalogue of Sir Henry Raeburn (1756-1823)’ Jeffrey Miller for research in the United Kingdom on ‘The Building Program of Walter de Gray: Architectural Production and Reform in the Archdiocese of York’ Anne-Françoise Morel for research in the United Kingdom on ‘The Construction of Meaning in 17th and 18th Century Church Architecture in England: A Study of Church Consecrations’ David Raizman for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Presentation Furniture in England, 1851-1889’ Chitra Ramalingam for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Henry Fox Talbot and the art of fixing transience’ Romita Ray for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Under the Banyan Tree: Relocating the Picturesque in British India, 1700-1947’ Sarah Thomas for research in the United Kingdom on ‘Visual Encounters in the New World: Race and slavery through British eyes, 1800-1850’ Maria Toscano for research in the United Kingdom on ‘John Strange and John Hawkins Italian Correspondences’
ROME FELLOWSHIP Ana María Suárez Huerta for research in Rome for her book Travels across Europe in the 18th century: The Unique Case of Spain POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS Ann-Marie Akehurst to prepare her book Architecture and Philanthropy in Eighteenth-Century York Christina Bradstreet to prepare her book Scented Visions: Picturing Perfume in Victorian Art Ruth Brimacombe to prepare an article ‘A new avatar of art’: The ‘Special Artists’ of the Illustrated Press’ and her book Imperial Avatars: Art, India and the Prince of Wales in 1875-6 Juliana Dresvina to prepare her book The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch in Medieval Europe Manolo Guerci to prepare his book From early Jacobean to High Victorian: An architectural and social history of Northumberland House in the Strand, London, 1605-1874 Emily Weeks to prepare her book Cultures Crossed: John Frederick Lewis (1804-1876) and the Art of Orientalist Painting JUNIOR FELLOWSHIPS Christina Smylitopoulos, McGill University, to conduct research in the United Kingdom for her doctoral thesis A Nabob's Progress: Graphic Satire, ‘The Grand Master’ and the source of Indian excess, 1770-1830 EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME GRANTS Museum of London grant towards a conference, 12 and 13 November 2009: Pomp and Power – Carriages as Status Symbols University of Birmingham grant towards a symposium, April or May 2009: Boulton and Eginton’s Mechanical Paintings (1777-1781): defining the mechanical process University of Birmingham grant towards a student-led conference, 6 June 2009: Building the Future: Birmingham’s Architectural Story University College Dublin grant towards a conference, 21 and 22 May 2009: The Fusion of Neoclassical Principles: scholars, architects, builders and designers in the neoclassical period
ya l e center for british art 1080 Chapel Street P.O Box 208280 New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8280 www.yale.edu/ycba
Full details of the following exhibitions and programs can be found at www.yale.edu/ycba, by telephoning 001 203 432 2800, or by e-mailing ycba.info@yale.edu.
Wednesday, 11 November, 5:30 pm Works of Genius: Amateur Artists at Strawberry Hill Lecture by Cindy Roman, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Paintings, The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University
exhibitions Paintings from the Reign of Victoria: The Royal Holloway Collection, London, through 26 July 2009. Organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia.
Wednesday, 19 November, 5:30 pm Walpole’s Shakespeare: The First Appearance of Second Life Lecture by Joseph Roach, Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley Professor of Theater and English, Yale University
Seascapes: Paintings and Watercolors from the U Collection, through 23 August 2009. Organized by the Yale Center for British Art.
p u b l i c at i o n s The Center is pleased to announce the publication of a reprinted version of The Architecture of the Yale Center for British Art by Jules David Prown, the Paul Mellon Professor Emeritus of the History SJ %VX EX =EPI 9RMZIVWMX] ERH ½VWX HMVIGXSV SJ XLI 'IRXIV JVSQ to1976). The Architecture of the Yale Center for British Art was originally published for the Center’s grand opening in 1977. A new foreword by current director Amy Meyers brings the celebration of the Center into the present day. Published by the Yale Center for British Art in association with Yale University Press.
Dalou in England: Portraits of Womanhood, 1871–1879 11 June–23 August 2009. Co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. Mrs. Delany and Her Circle: Yale Center for British Art: 24 September 2009–3 January 2010; Sir John Soane’s Museum: 18 February– 1 May, 2010. Co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane’s Museum. A fully illustrated book accompanying the exhibition, edited by Mark Laird and Alicia Weisberg Roberts, will be published by the Yale Center for British Art and Sir John Soane’s Museum in association with Yale University Press. related program: Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 5:30 pm Exhibition Opening Lecture by Mark Laird, Senior Lecturer, Department of Landscape Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill Yale Center for British Art: 15 October 2009–2 January 2010 Victoria & Albert Museum: 6 March–4 July 2010 Co-organized by the Yale Center for British Art; the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University; and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, edited by Michael Snodin with the assistance of Cindy Roman and published by the Yale Center for British Art, the Lewis Walpole Library, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, in association with Yale University Press. related programs: Wednesday, 14 October 2009, 5:30 pm Exhibition Opening Lecture by Michael Snodin, Senior Research Fellow, Victoria and Albert Museum Johann Heinrich Mßntz, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, from the South HIXEMP GE ¯ SMP SR GERZEW Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University
senior visiting scholar november 2009: Marcia Pointon, Professor Emeritus of History of Art at the University of Manchester and Honorary Research Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London visiting scholars july–august 2009: Christopher Coltrin, PhD candidate, University of Michigan; Amy Von Lintel, PhD candidate, University of Southern California august–september 2009: Meredith Hale, Independent Scholar; Phillip Lindley, Reader in Art History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Country House, University of Leicester september 2009: Jay Curley, Assistant Professor of Art History, Department of Art, Wake Forest University october–november 2009: Petrina Dacres, Head of Department, Art History Department, Edna Manley College for the Visual and Performing Arts; Amanda Herbert, PhD candidate, Department of History, Johns Hopkins University; Andrea Korda, PhD candidate, Department of the History of Art and Architecture, University of California at Santa Barbara; Leon Wainwright, Lecturer in the History of Art and Design, Department of the History of Art and Design, Manchester Metropolitan University